Tag: orchids

As the cold settles in on northern Germany it is easy to understand the idea of Hallow e’en. The celebration of spookiness was not a big thing in this part of the world, but masks and lanterns are now beginning to catch on. If your mind is primed by such ideas, then it is easy to notice cobwebs and old stone walls. The swaying of branches and rustling of leaves holds little fear in cities full of people. But one can see the prey caught in a spider’s web, the silent flight of an owl, the scurry of a dormouse through fallen leaves, and imagine what people in a different age may have felt.

I’m more enchanted by hothouse orchids which I saw in this season, growing in a nice warm room away from the blustery wind. If you have a halloweened mind, you could see ghosts and flying bats in them. There’s something for everyone in this dark season before the winter markets start.

Today Germany is celebrating the 500th anniversary of what is called the Reformation in Europe, the anniversary of Martin Luther nailing his 95 theses to the door of the church in the castle of Wittenberg. This led eventually to a Europe-wide religious war which lasted for a century, and a peace signed in Westphalia which divided the continent. More on this later.

Like this:

Our time in Bhutan was coming to an end. We checked out of our hotel in Bumthang and spent the day driving to Lobeysa, a long drive. We passed again through the mixed forest on the way down, catching glimpses of the wonderfully greenish-blue Verditer Flycatchers (Eumyias thalassinus), black drongos with their forked tails (Dicurcus macrocercus) and the bright colours of Scarlet Minivets (Pericrocotus speciosus),

On our way up, we’d seen that there was no food on the road, so this time we packed lunch. When we stopped to eat we saw this interesting orchid poking out of the ground next to the road. I have no identification. Can anyone help?

At another stop we saw what looked like a piece of fungus growing on a stone (highlighted in the photo above). Then suddenly it began to move like a caterpillar, its body hunching in the little waves that propel a caterpillar forward. Before I could change the setting on my camera to take a video, the animal had disappeared into a crack in the stone. What a marvellous piece of camouflage. I wish I knew which moth this would develop into.

Then as we came lower we entered a zone of the forest full of Dendrobium fimbriatum orchids growing on trees. We probably caught them at the end of their flowering season, but they were spectacularly in bloom along kilometres of the road. We wondered how we’d missed seeing them on the way up. They are fairly common and can be found in many parts of India, the Himalayas, and south-east Asia. Still, it takes unspoiled forests of the kind that exist in Bhutan for it to bloom so spectacularly. Bhutan is estimated to have around 500 species of orchids, so we scarcely observed the surface of this immense diversity.

Many years later I came across the wonderful travel book called The Riddle of The Tsangpo Gorges by Frank Kingdom Ward which describes the flora of Tibet and the eastern Himalayas. As I begin to end the description of our trip through Bhutan nine years ago, the wonderful first line of the book comes to mind: "I have often observed that no matter how much I read about a foreign land before visiting it, I find by experience that it differs widely from what I expected."

The sprawling 425 acres of the Kandawgyi botanical garden is one of the best places to spend your time in the British era hill station called Pyin Oo Lwin. It was founded by the British Army colonel May and called Maymyo (May’s town). The summer capital of Raj-era Burma remained one of the favourite spots of army generals, so the town has been kept manicured and clean, but renamed. We saw amazing things here: a Hoolock Gibbon in the open (featured photo) and Takins (a Himalayan goat-antelope). Everything we saw here could also be seen in India, but you’ll have to travel to the wilds, and be lucky, to see them.

A meandering walk through a garden is a quiet and peaceful way to spend your time, so look through the photos below at your leisure, without my chatter to break the peace.

The Sessa Orchidarium is not hard to spot. On our way up from Bhalukpong we’d seen it on the right flank of the highway just after passing through Tipi, and marked it down as something for later. On the way down we saw again the gate above which is a large board which says "Sessa Orchidarium". Although we were fairly sure that November is not a time when orchids flower, we visited it because it was so easy to spot.

We drove in. There was a ticket booth, but it was not manned. The gate was open, and we drove through to the parking lot. The person selling the ticket arrived when we were about to leave. Near the parking lot was a map of the Orchidarium.

The place is large. There are many sections with naturally growing orchids. In the wild we had seen orchids growing on large trees. One part of the grounds was full of these trees. When I walked among them I saw orchids growing; very few of them were flowering. It would have been nice to know more about them, and I wished this section was labelled and had more information.

The locations of greenhouses were marked on the site map. We walked on to one. It was standing open. Until now we had seen no one. Now we spotted someone walking past. He stopped when we asked him where we could go, and he indicated the open door. Inside were the usual spectacular hybrid varieties. We saw many Cattleya. This was a little bit of a surprise, because the genus Cattleya is not found in the wild in these regions.

Orchids are special enough that we spent a while walking slowly through the aisles. Few flowers were in bloom, but the ones which were looked lovely. It seemed to me that we had seen most of them before. At this time of the year the greenhouse was pleasant but not spectacular. I think it will be a riot of blooms in April or May. Unfortunately, even in the hothouse, labelling was minimal. If each plant had been labelled, we could have looked up information on it with our phone as we walked through.

When we emerged, the place was still deserted. We could have walked into other fields and other greenhouses, but the story would have been similar. It was hard to be enthusiastic about the Orchidarium in winter, especially as there was no information on what we were seeing. Clearly there is a laudable effort to cultivate and preserve. Since this place calls itself a research centre, one has the feeling that this part of the work is being done with some enthusiasm. But it also invites public participation, always a good thing for scientists to do. A little more thought given to educating the public about orchids would have been very welcome. The Family and I are determined to go back, and the next time we will try to go in the company of a botanist who knows about the local orchids.